Kovacevic: Are Pirates alive? They think so ☕

"Man, we needed that."

This was Josh Bell. He and I were talking after the Pirates' spectacular Sunday double-upending of the Padres at PNC Park. And believe it or not, he wasn't referencing the three-run rally in the ninth inning or, for that matter, the four-run rally in the 11th.

Nope. He meant the broader feel. And I got it the first time.

Because to understand this group that takes the field each day, one I've been praising in the character category since the buses rolled into Bradenton, is to understand they aren't caught up in outside perception. At all. They don't care -- and hardly ever discuss -- that the owner's a penny-pincher with far different priorities. Or that the baseball operations staff can't find a functioning arm in Class AAA Indianapolis. Or that pretty much everyone beyond the walls of their clubhouse sees their 2019 season as a lost cause.

Come on, who couldn't confess to this?

Sure, at 36-40, they're six games out of first place, 3 1/2 off the wild card. But that's a fine spot only in a blind vacuum, given that they're still lugging along a minus-72 run differential, and they're embarking today on a trip to Houston and Milwaukee to take on two of Major League Baseball's best teams, then face -- sit down for this -- Cubs, Brewers, Cubs, Cardinals and Phillies.

Not a loser in the bunch. Add those six teams' current records, and they're a combined 38 games over .500. The Astros alone account for half of that.

And bear in mind, the Pirates are 13-26 against teams over .500, 3-14 over the past month.

All logic strongly suggests they're about to be buried.

Again, though, that logic never seems to penetrate the only place that matters.

"We'll have to do better against those teams, no question," Bell told me. "But we're also starting to see some results for a lot of good things that have been happening, and we're feeling good. We just need to keep it going."

Go ahead and bet against the guy who had a dozen home runs last year and suddenly merits regular remembrances of Willie Stargell.

• More prediction columns are misses than hits. That's the nature of such stuff for anyone not named Nostradamus. But with the Pirates being in Houston today, I'm feeling especially warm and fuzzy about this column I wrote from Minute Maid Park in late March, based on an extensive talk with Bell about resuscitating his power. Give it another glance. It's amazing how right he was about everything. That column was based on his prediction, not mine, and he completely nailed it.

• Within a sports fan/media culture that tends to magnify, even glamorize the miscreants in professional sports, it'll be wonderful someday when even more people eventually get exposed to all the great things about Bell. Among the most cerebral, most well-constructed individuals I've covered in any sport.

• I hope he stays out of that stupid Home Run Derby. But he won't. Not his style.

• Speaking of predictions, I'm positively delighted to have been dead wrong on Kevin Newman. In fairness, I didn't exactly declare him a failure after 91 September at-bats in 2018, that following a long Class AAA season. But I wasn't encouraged, either, and given all the misfit arrivals all around him, it was all too easy to lump them together.

Newman's future at shortstop remains suspect, but if his worst-case scenario is sliding to second -- which he's also played in the minors -- while slashing .314/.367/.430 with some pop, that's not all bad.

Good for him, and good for Neal Huntington and his lieutenants for appropriately identifying -- and they talked about this all offseason, not after the fact -- that Newman's primary issue late last year was fatigue and nothing more.

• It's almost July, and Bryan Reynolds is batting .362. Just thought I'd share that.

I try to always reference a full slash line for hitters, as on-base and slugging percentages are more complete indicators of performance. Not this time. This kid is batting three-freaking-sixty-two. Through 188 at-bats. With six bombs, 16 doubles, two triples and solid defense in left.

Oh, and he's cool enough to choose this from the Man in Black as his walkup music at PNC:

I asked Reynolds about that while he was facing into his stall, and he spun around sporting a Johnny Cash T-shirt. The smile that followed was sufficient.

• Who's the bigger steal, Reynolds or Austin Meadows?

Better question: Are the Giants being ripped as viciously as the Pirates -- rightly -- have been for the Chris Archer trade?

• The manager of this team is not a small part of all that spirit described above. He'll just get virtually zero credit for it.

• The Rays' leaked proposal to split half their season between St. Petersburg and Montreal is stupid on its face. But these are legitimately smart people running that franchise. They know it's stupid. What they're trying to force is an escape from what's been reported to be the most unbreakable stadium lease in professional sports.

Be that as it may, it's terribly unfair to play Montreal as a pawn, particularly after how Bud Selig conspired to brutally sabotage the Expos and move them to D.C. Baseball lovers in Quebec have shown an outpouring each spring by packing the decrepit old Olympic Stadium with 50,000-plus for hollow exhibitions. They don't deserve this.

What they deserve is their team back. And under the same condition that Winnipeg won its Jets back with the relocation from Atlanta, name and logo intact.

If I sound attached to this, it's because I was sent to Montreal by the Post-Gazette a decade ago to document this debacle and learned a lot about all the malfeasance and misperceptions involved. Links apparently no longer exist to that work, but that's OK because my friend Jack Todd of the Montreal Gazette has covered this matter like no other reporter, and he wrote about the Tampa Bay concept in a column just this week.

• On a similar note, after spending a couple days in Seattle over this weekend trip to cover the NHL Draft in Vancouver, I'm reminded powerfully what a no-brainer it was for that league to expand there. Big, bustling city with a booming downtown area, world-class facilities for the Seahawks and Mariners, unmatched attendance in Major League Soccer for the Sounders, and the NBA's Sonics pulled the plug on another city that never deserved such treatment.

With the Canucks three hours and a border up the road, it also finally puts another team in that franchise's vicinity, making for a natural rival, fairer travel and everything.

This took way too long.

• Dear God, this means a restart of all the expansion draft angst, doesn't it?

I take it all back.

• Jim Rutherford isn't signing any significant free agents. He told our Dave Molinari exactly that in Vancouver, and he isn't about to change his mind. Nor is he bluffing. The man has no free cash.

Consider that a preemptive response when you read stuff like this between now and the July 1 start of free agency:

#Penguins have reportedly had conversations with Wayne Simmonds’ agent but only have lukewarm interest. #Flyers

— Sam Carchidi (@BroadStBull) June 24, 2019

Which presumes a conversation like this between Rutherford and Eustace King, Simmonds' longtime agent ...

Rutherford: "We feel like Wayne would be a good fit."

King: "How much money?"

Rutherford: "Wayne would add a lot to our locker room."

King: "How much money?"

Rutherford: "Wayne would make us harder to play against."

King: "How ... much ... money?

Rutherford: "I don't have any money."

King: "Your interest ... it strikes me as lukewarm."

• Been neat to hear the Penguins' brass speak as highly as they have of Marcus Pettersson. It's a good move on a lot of levels, not least of which is that no one would want a 23-year-old NHL sophomore coming into camp thinking he belongs on a third pairing. He'll be challenged to crack the second pairing with Justin Schultz.

• If Rutherford doesn't make his major trade -- meaning Phil Kessel -- by July 1, it might not happen at all. That's not a guess. That's right from Rutherford on the floor in Vancouver, and we reported it, but I fear it might get lost amid all else we offered over the weekend. If he isn't simply attempting to accelerate a market for Kessel, that essentially reduces the window to a half-dozen days.

• This, too: Rutherford never discussed a Kris Letang trade with Toronto. In fact, he hasn't been in communication with the Maple Leafs on any matter in months. Also right from Rutherford on the floor. And he can't lie on that count, as it'd be easy for the Leafs to call him on it.

It's that time of year, hockey fans. Be judicious.

• Really like the Penguins' top two picks, Samuel Poulin and Nathan Légaré. Tap their names here to see the studies I've done on both, but in a nutshell, the concept of adding bigger bodies who can skate and score feels like being ahead of the game rather than following someone else's curve. For more than a couple years now, I've been surprised that more teams haven't tried to bite back against the smaller, faster NHL, with countless games exhibiting no contact or snarl at all. That pendulum had swung too far.

These two will make it. And they'll contribute. There's too much there in the way of tools and character.

• The NFL lays low this time each summer, but it's always fun to talk Steelers, as Dale Lolley and I do in today's Morning Java:

• Happy 15th birthday to Marko Kovacevic! (I've got quite the tale about his arrival unto this plane over at What's Brewing!)

And thanks to all of you for reading the Takes!